Investor Perspectives on Education: Featuring Graham Forman of Edovate Capital

In this episode, Hall welcomes Graham Forman, Founder and Managing Director at Edovate Capital. Edovate Capital is a seed and early-stage venture capital company whose leadership invests in companies that lead innovation in the education market. They know firsthand the pains and gains of growing early-stage companies into successful firms and they have passion and experience in the education market. They look for outstanding people to partner with for the long term who have products or services that will transform education.Edovate Capital partners with social entrepreneurs to scale companies solving education's hardest challenges. They identify capital-efficient education technology companies tackling education's hardest challenges, fund their growth, and help increase their impact. They have backed industry-leading K12 companies including Pear Deck, LearnPlatform, Paper Education, Kiddom, and BookNook Learning.Graham spent his career in education, entrepreneurship, and investing. The first phase of his career was in education policy where he worked for U.S. Senator Paul Simon and former California State Assemblyman, Senator, and Community College Chancellor Jack Scott. He worked with school leaders addressing some of their biggest challenges in leading large school systems.The second phase of his career was as a startup operator serving as head of sales, marketing, business development, and customer success in impact-focused SaaS companies serving education. His last role included leading sales and business development for Netchemia. During his tenure, the company grew to serve more than 2,400 school districts and 20,000 schools in the U.S. with a best-in-class talent management suite. Netchemia was acquired by People Admin (backed by Vista Equity Partners) in 2015, which kicked off Graham's third career phase where he founded Edovate. In this role, he backs impact-focused seed-stage K12 companies with investment and advisory support.He lives in Denver with his wife and two children and enjoys travel, tennis, the outdoors, and cooking.Graham discusses the rise of the edtech sector, classroom engagement, next-generation school segments, the primary trends in the sector, Edovate Capital's participation thus far, and more. You can visit Edovate Capital at www.edovatecapital.com, and via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/edovate-capital/. Graham can be contacted via email at [email protected], via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/grahamforman/, and via Twitter at www.twitter.com/grahamforman. Music courtesy of Bensound.